Essendon supporters last night got a glimpse of what is looking like a very bright future for the club.

Backed up by the more senior players’ stable efforts it was the club’s more inexperienced players that hit the ground running to kick Essendon’s second highest score of the season.

Benefitting from consistent game time, Essendon’s younger players are slowly but surely beginning to find their feet.

In only his 10^th game of senior AFL football, midfielder Nick O’Brien’s 32 possession game drew praise from Coach James Hird.

“O’Brien played his best game for the club,” Hird said.

“(He) has been building towards that.”

Joining the club after the 2011 draft, O’Brien was initially recruited as a leading half-forward before being remoulded over the last few years to play as a key  inside midfielder.

“As the year has gone on he has got better and better,” Hird said.

“In the reserves, there were probably six games in a row where he was getting 30-35 possessions and getting tagged and dominating those games. That’s what we saw again tonight.

“He’s just getting more comfortable and his brain is going quicker and picking the game up and reading the cues better.”

Now with five games in a row, O’Brien has a solid foundation to build on for the rest of the season and has the opportunity to make a real name for himself, possibly cementing a position in the team heading into 2016.

O'Brien's last 5 games: